Re: which GCC version old or new?

[Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc at mediaone dot net>]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 05:36:17PM -0800, Goodwin, Kevin M. wrote:
> Hello GCC Team,
>     I am currently working on a new project here at SPAWARS system center
> S.D. and we will be using RH Linux 7.1 or 7.2. 
> as our development platform. The code will be entirely ANSI C with RH GLADE
> as a GUI. We are trying decide on which 
> version of GCC to use. I have heard some talk about binary incompatibility
> with gcc 2.96. Will GCC 3.0.1 or 3.0.3 be our 
> best bet?


For C development, gcc 2.96-98 from Red Hat should be 
sufficient.  I use that version of the compiler under
Red Hat Linux 7.2 every day for my production work.

The Red Hat version of gcc 2.96 works well with all the
libraries and tools that come as part of the Red Hat Linux
distribution, including things like Glade.
Since it is a standard part of their distribution,
it makes deploying your binaries on standard Red Hat Linux
7.2 systems much easier.

I use the gcc-2.96-98 from Red Hat for my production work,
and am satisfied with it.  However, the FSF GCC project
does not support this version of the compiler:

http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html



If sticking to supported releases from the FSF is important
to you, then GCC 3.0.3 or GCC 3.04 (which is due out on
February 15, 2002, http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2002-01/msg01355.html)
should be sufficient.  You may need to compile more
of your libraries used with this version of the compiler.  This
could be an issue for you in terms of deploying binaries on
different Red Hat Linux machines, but it is not an insurmountable
problem.

GCC 3.0.3 and up seem relatively stable.  If you program
in C++, GCC 3.0.3 offers a much more feature complete
Standard C++ and STL library implementation that gcc 2.96, but
you did not mention that you would be programming in C++.

I would not consider using GCC 3.0.1 for any production
level work.  This version of the compiler when crashing
parts of the Linux kernel.

My views do not represent the views of the FSF,
nor of Red Hat.  I am just relating my opinions to
you based on my experiences in using gcc very heavily
on the Linux platform over the past year.

Good luck!

-- 
Craig Rodrigues        
http://www.gis.net/~craigr    
rodrigc@mediaone.net